Teens telling their stories, their way!

Tag Archives: Copyright

The Library of Congress allows writers and other creative people to register their original work. Copyrighting your work with the Library of Congress proves ownership. In the past I’ve received lots of advice on how to protect your work. Some people told me to just mail a copy of my script to myself and that was enough proof instead of doing that I decided to register my work with the Library of Congress. For scripts I’ve used form PA and for my novel I use form TE. There are different forms to fill out depending on what you are registering.

The cost have gone up and there is a different fee if you register online or mail in your application. It cost me $35 to register my novel online. If I mailed in the material it would have cost me $85. Registering online is also a quicker process. The cool thing about registering your work is that if can log on and see all the work you’ve ever registered along with the copyright number.

If you’ve worked hard on your screenplays, stories, drawings, or other creative projects why not spend the extra money and make sure that if someone tries to make claims on your work you have proof that your own the rights to the work?

Once you complete your novel and plan to send it out in hopes of winning a writing competition or getting feedback it’s a good idea to copyright your manuscript first. All you need to do is go to the copyright website and fill out the form. For novels the fee is $35 and you use form TX for literary works; form VA for Visual Arts, PA for Performing arts such as screenplays or plays and written music, and form SR for sound recordings.

on copyright protection was to mail the document to yourself. This way you would have the stamp from the post office as proof for when the document was created.

For $35 online and I think it’s $65 by mail, you can protect your work with a document from the United States Copyright Bureau. Form TX is the form you use for literary works. It takes FOREVER now but eventually you’ll receive a document with your copyright registration number for your manuscript. You can go online and even find your document if you lose your registration form.